Please to Meet You
by Poke-lover
Summary: Jezibelle is a clumsy hare who falls right into an adventure she never thought she would have.
1. Chapter 1

A small family of woodland mice stood outside of their newly finished home. It wasn't of master craft, but it was roomy and had a homely feel to it. Arin Advole clapped his hands at the job well done that he and his two sons, Grandon and Brandon, did.

"Well, that was quite an adventure wouldn't you say so my sons?" Arin asked, slapping his tired paws on the smaller mice's backs.

They too looked at the finished project with great accomplishment. "Yes, father. It's like nothing I had ever seen before in my life."

It was of simple construction with large wooden branches stood crooked upright, dug into the ground for support. Smaller branches were nailed to them with wooden nails carved by Arin. A leaves and grass roof was plastered on the top with mud. Mud was used to fill in any gaps to keep the elements out and to keep the warmth the family needed inside. Twigs lashed with string in a cross shape were fitted into the square-like holes to make windows that smaller animals wouldn't be able to crawl on inside. A door carved from the trunk of a fallen tree hung in the doorway, not even connected to the rest of the rest of the building, but that'll be something to work on when they have the time.

But things are just beginning. A house first, and field of fresh food second. Life was just going to be getting better and better, no doubt about it.

Candice wobbled up behind the males to look at their hard work. "Oh my, it's quite… um… lovely, yes, very lovely." She patted the tops of her son's heads. "You boys did a great job, great job indeed. I just can't wait to see it fall… I mean, I can't wait to see inside." She rubbed her large heavy belly. "Well, let's see."

"Don't work too hard mam. Can't let you run yourself ragged." He easily picked her up in his arms and kissed her with their sons hiding their horrified faces behind their paws. "You're not the only one here. Gotta keep your strength up."

Candice laughed at her husband's antics. "Oh Arin, you ol' worry wart, you. I'll be fine. It's not like I wasn't pregnant before."

The whole family walked into their new home.

* * *

Jezibelle Raulmonwinkle the Fifteenth was an exceptionally klutzy hare. She just couldn't seem to do anything right. Just this morning, she lit Friar Manserve's apron on fire trying to turn on the oven. He ran all over the kitchen and destroyed the food he was preparing for breakfast. That just made her hungry when he sent her out with no breakfast, her stomach grumbled in its pure agony at missing such an important meal, next to lunch and dinner, and any snack in between.

Later in the day, while grumbling over her missed meal, she tripped over a rock in the grounds and fell right into Mother Merf's spring flower garden. She now knows the true fear of an angry badger.

Now she was hiding up in a tree and keeping very still and very quiet. Hares aren't even supposed to climb trees anyway, it was official, Jezibelle was not a normal hare.

"Now where has the loathsome hare gotten to. If I ever catch her, she'll become the first bald if I have anything to say about it." Merf stomped across the abbey courtyard and around the tree Jezibelle trembled in, trying to keep her teeth from chattering together. She was not about to lose her hair. A hare without hair? No, that wasn't good at all.

Abbess Gernam quietly looked on the strange scene of the normally calm and collected badger mother in such a fuming rage. She decided it was best to just let her cool down. The gatehouse was the place to be at this time of the day. Francis has been always such a peach when he's laying about and telling the stories of the long past of his many years.

Jezibelle silently whimpered as she watched the Abbess walk away from her predicament, not even able to signal for help. "Oh bothersome, wot." She swore and looked down as Merf rounded the abbey corner and disappeared from sight. This was as good of a chance as any.

Skimming down the tree, Jezibelle bobbed and weaved where there was no grass to bob and weave, but it made her feel better that she felt she was doing something for her survival. Shoving the abbey door open, she leapt into the coolness of Great Hall, and slammed the door shut behind her.

Hopping inside, she groaned. "Oh feather wreaths, I should've plum shut the ol' door a lot quieter. Mother Merf surely heard it." And to answer her thoughts, the Great Hall doors opened and the badger stood there silhouetted by the sunlight outside. Jezibelle scooted across the stone floor and underneath one of the great tables.

"All right, you slithering little bug, I know you're in here." Merf's voice echoed against the stone walls.

This gave Jezibelle a grand idea. "Quite right, quite right. I am jolly well in here. Good show, good following ol' gal." The echoing made her voice sound like it was coming from all directions.

Merf's heavy pawsteps thundered and resonated everywhere. "Not that hard. I knew you was in that tree the whole time. You know badgers can't climb trees. I was hoping to get the drop on you, but you proved to be faster than I expected."

"Yes, well. We seem to be at a bloody impasse. Not what I like in my book, I should say. How bout we let bygones be bygones and forget this little excursion ever happened. What do you say, dear ol' Merf?"

Hear pawsteps still continued as she spoke. "Oh yes. Bygones be bygones, what a grand idea. You get your dinner and I would get a planter full of crushed gorse flowers. How absolutely lovely."

Jezibelle gulped. "Well, that would make such an idea ludacris. Oh, look at the time, I must be going."

She shot out from under the table intent on running up into the dormitories, but Mother Merf was ready for her with open paws. With no time to react, Jezibelle crashed right into the badger who soon held her against her chest. The hare was caught.

Merf spoke in a half-baked accent of the hare. "Oh deary me, what do we have her? A jolly ol' beatle in need to be outside? Well, goodness me, I'll have to see to that, wot?" Jezibelle could hear the badger's laugh rumble in her chest.

"I don't suppose we could talk about this?" She asked hopefully.

The abbey doors opened and the pair marched out into Merf's garden, where she stopped the hare at the devastated flower bed. All the gorse flowers were torn up or squashed like a pancake. Like a pancake she had missed at breakfast. "We'll talk about it alright. We'll talk about how you're going to be helping me with fixing this mess." The badger placed her paws on her hips, which looked quite threatening when it could be.

"Yes, i suppose we bloody well might. Let's see here. I could clean up the garden, pull the weeds, plant new flowers, take the bugs out, all jolly well good, wot?"  
"I could have you do that, if I had any seed left. I'm all out."

"Then I'll head out into Mossflower and find you some. There's bound to be countless gorse flowers out there at this time of year."

The mother's gaze grew sterner. "There are also a lot of thieves out there when the weather gets hot. I can't allow you to go out there alone. I'll just have you miss out on dinner tonight."

Jezibelle's ears stood straight up in such a horrible thought. "What!? Oh no, no, no, good madam. I just can't miss out on two meals in the span of a single day! I'll surely starve!"

"Then maybe that'll teach you to watch where you step…"

"No, absolutely not! That is a tragedy! I'll brave the bandits out there and find your bloomin' seeds and flowers! I'll set out tomorrow."

Merf shook her head in ever wonder and puzzlement. "If you wish. But I can't allow you to go out there on your own. I'll find a good Redwaller who would be kind enough to head out with you."

"Mother, why did that sound evil?"

* * *

It was a cold, clear, quiet night in Mossflower. The sounds of the forest seemed to head off to sleep as Gandon and Brandon had done the same. Arin and Candice sat out next to the heat of a glowing red fire, and just took in their surroundings now the sun had gone down.

"Life should get a whole lot better now. We won't have to worry about the King ever again." Arin's optimism didn't do much good in calming Candice.

"I'm just worried that his guard would find us. You remember what he said, no one leaves except in a plywood box on the surf. Makes me feel so unsafe here now that the thoughts have returned." Candice's worries were not her own. Arin was an optimist, but he didn't forget the dangers that his family were facing now they had left.

"I'm ever certain that life would get easier from now on." Arin felt like he lied to his wife.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jezibelle strangely woke up earlier than she normally did. The sun hadn't even risen over the Mossflower trees. The pink and purple colors just beginning to show their light in the vast darkness, were pushing it all away to be reviled and start a brand new day. It was odd that the hare would be waking up at such an hour, especially since the Redwall kitchens were cold and the Friar still in bed asleep.  
"Oh fiddlesticks." She tried to go back to sleep, but her eyes wouldn't shut and her body wouldn't relax. "This is an outrage?"

She suddenly had a feeling inside her. 'Come to the Great Hall'.  
Careful to avoid the squeaky floorboards, Jezibelle maneuvered herself over to her door and out into the Redwall dormitories. The sounds of sleeping and snoring creatures were prominent throughout the hallways as Jez giant feet slightly padded on the wooden ground. She passed by Merf's doorway, and Jez flattened her ears to the roaring that the badger's snoring could make.  
The hare made her careful way down the ancient stairs with the large letters carved into the stone that spelled out REDWALL, down into the dark emptiness of the Great Hall.

Everything there had an air of emptiness, and Jez didn't like it a bit, it was much too quiet in a place where she has her breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and evening snack every single day. It felt out of place and unneeded. There before her on the opposite wall hung the Great Redwall Tapestry. The hare gazed up at it pure magnificence with honor and respect, for this was the story of Redwall stitched from the past to the present with skilled craft of generations added on. The edges were being extended and this generation's addition is being added on now, though Jez has no idea what they have in store for the next kin to come along to continue the good Redwall name.  
Moonlight shimmered down through the high stained glass window in a multitude of colors like rose and jade with the sapphire blue between. The tables and chairs in the hall were a dancing of light in the darkness that Jez had never seen before in her life. The fear and worry of the darkness had vanished instantly with this thought and she felt peaceful. Not the peace that she got when nothing was wrong, but the peaceful when you had someone brave looking out for you.

Martin the Warrior's picture on the tapestry seemed to come alive before Jez's eyes as the wildcat and the vermin scrambled to get away from him in fear, but the kind mouse warrior didn't chase after them to finish the job, he stood there in victory over a battle so long ago. He was too kind. Jez knew he was brave and a great warrior, but to be just as kind was something unheard of. In fact, he must've been very good at everything he did. What would she give to not to make so many blunders in a single day, it was a miracle that she didn't trip over her feet as she made her way here. Maybe Martin was watching her and guiding her. She wished she could do that for some other poor creature, but she can't even help herself, how would she be of any help?

"You better not be trying to sneak a snack from the kitchen now, you hear me." Jez was surprised by that voice and spun around to see Friar Manserve standing there with his apron wrapped around his arms. He held a cheeky grin and laughed. "Oh, I'm so sorry about scaring you, I thought you had heard me banging down the stairs now."  
Jez waved him off. "It's okay."  
Manserve tilted his head off to the side. "Now I know there is something wrong with you. You aren't as upbeat as you always are. What's wrong?" The pudgy mouse waddled over to a chair, pulled it out, and slumped into it with his belly jiggling as he did so.  
Jez pulled out a chair as well as she began her story. "I've been just a wee bit upset over blundering this and destroying that. I even set your fur on fire, and I wouldn't be surprised one bit if you were still angry at me for it too, wot, wot."

The Friar sighed and rubbed the top of his head where Jez could barely see some singed hairs. When he was done, he looked back at the hare and smiled. "I'm not mad one bit, it was an accident, everyone makes them from time to time. You've just made a few more than others, no problem. Why, I remember one time I put too much yeast in the bread I was baking for the Abbess' Jubilee Feast. Oh ho ho, it was rising and bloating and just wouldn't stop." He gave a belly laugh. "But it turned out to be some of the best bread I had ever made, paws down."  
"Yes, but something well and good came out of it, wot. What good came out of burning your haircut off?" Jez asked.  
"Oh, it was a horrible haircut, I was gonna have it cut off anyway. And I had heard Merf was planning on pulling the flowers out of her garden anyway, you just saved her some trouble." He smiled even bigger. "See, unexpected things do come from mistakes that you would've never thought of before."  
"Then why does Merf want me to go out into Mossflower to find more seeds?" Jez was getting a bit confused.  
"My guess would be to teach you a lesson in not running when you make that mistake. That's the reason I banned you from breakfast yesterday. You ran."

Jez didn't say anything, what could she say, she did run away, but they would punish her either way. "It's strange how you're feeling upset over this. I mean, the hares that come from Salamandastron are always upbeat and proud, even when they make a mistake." Jez ears poked up when she heard the name of the home of the badgers, the fire mountain. "Maybe it's because you were born here instead of there. I wonder though... If you were to go to the mountain, maybe they could help you. Oh ,what am I saying? It's much too far. Just thinking out loud, i guess, better get those ovens started, farewell." Manserve threw himself up out of the chair, pushed it in, and waddled out of the room, leaving Jez all by herself.

Salamandastron echoed in Jezibelle's head.


End file.
